A biological, who identifies as a woman, came out on top of a New York City cycling race, upsetting critics that it was “not fair at all” for the true female opponents.
Tiffany Thomas, the 46-year-old transgender winner, began cycling in 2018 and has dominated the sport ever since, including clinching a spot on a top cycling team, LA Sweat, where the next oldest teammate is only 32 years old.
“Last race with our 2022 LA Sweat team kit. I’m not going to lie, sometimes it made me feel like a superhero when I wore it,” Thomas noted in an Instagram post.
Thomas’ LA Sweat Team profile biography states the biological male works as a lab director as “a scientist by day, athlete by night.”
“You will never see anyone with a bigger smile than when she sees a beautiful electron microscopy picture of a red cell,” the biography notes. “She has never met a barbell, a bike, or a dog that she doesn’t like. She is so incredibly excited to race and represent the LA Sweat team this year!”
Other female cyclists are not thrilled over Thomas’ win, to say the least, accusing the trans cyclist of “cheating.”
“Not fair at all. At the Randall’s Island Crit #3 over the weekend, transgender athlete Tiffany Thomas was seen at the top of the podium while two women followed in second and third place. A crit race, or criterium, is a lapped, closed-circuit race that usually takes place in cities, according to http://Bicycling.com,” one person tweeted.
“I feel so bad for woman athletes in America that have trained their entire lives,” another critic lamented, according to the Daily Mail. “We are destroying woman’s rights in America. They might as well just make every sport in this country co-ed. This is all so unfair. Everyone should live the way they want but there are sacrifices.”
Former champion cyclist Hannah Arensman even quit the cycling sport after failing to place against a trans cyclist.
“At my last race at the recent UCI Cyclocross National Championships in the elite women’s category, I came in fourth, flanked on either side by male riders awarded third and fifth,” she commented in her retirement announcement. “My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him throughout the race.”